Security training helped minimize attack at Holocaust Museum

WASHINGTON
-- The U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum was shuttered Thursday with its flags at half-staff as it mourned a guard who died stopping a rifle attack by a gunman authorities identified as an 88-year-old white supremacist.

James von Brunn, a Holocaust denier who once tried to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board, is the suspect in Wednesday's assault at the museum. Guard Stephen T. Johns was killed.

Security engaged the gunman as soon as he stepped inside the crowded museum and began shooting, authorities said. Johns, 39, who is black, "died heroically in the line of duty," museum director Sara Bloomfield said.

Bouquets of roses, lillies and other flowers were lined up outside the museum walls Thursday morning. The entrance where the shooting occurred was still cordoned off by police tape.

Bloomfield told NBC's "Today" show that Johns was both a terrific professional and "a very warm and friendly individual, and we at the museum are devastated by his loss."

Bloomfield said the museum takes security very seriously and that training had prepared guards to respond to the attack.

"So we feel that this actually worked extremely well in terms of how many people's lives were saved in this incident," she told NBC.